In the Wasteland
by MissAppropriation
Summary: Missing scene for Death of the Doctor (Sarah Jane Adventures). The Doctor runs into an old friend while stranded in the Wasteland of the Crimson Heart. Characters: 11th Doctor, the Master (Simm). Gen, friendship.


**In the Wasteland**

"Hey. _Hey!_" The Doctor jumped up and down in the red sand, waving his arms wildly at the departing Shansheeth spaceship.

It didn't stop.

Unsurprisingly, since they had been the ones to strand him here in the first place.

The ship blinked away in a flash, shooting off into hyperspace.

The Doctor spun in a slow circle, surveying the Wasteland. "Oh, this is bad. Very, very, very... Bad." He ran a hand through his hair and put both fists up to hit his head a few times, trying to think.

Well, trying to think about something _relevant_.

_Focus, Doctor._

What did he _have_?

He put a hand into his jacket pocket, although he already knew it was empty.

"No sonic, no TARDIS, no Ponds..." he said aloud, enumerating the things he _didn't_ have. The things he usually _started _with in situations like this. "Ooh," he grimaced. "Bad..."

In the old days, he'd gotten out of positions far worse than this with far less.

_How had he done that again?_

He was out of practice. Or maybe he'd just gotten lazy.

"Getting old..." the Doctor muttered to the Crimson Wasteland with a self-judging smile.

A familiar sound breathed through the cluttered battlefield, growing louder until it was unmistakable.

The Doctor turned in a few different directions until he located where the sound was coming from.

As expected, a TARDIS materialized in the red sand.

But... Not _his_ TARDIS.

The Doctor stared at it, puzzled, interested.

He thought about hiding, taking cover.

When faced with unknowns, that was the _smart_ thing to do.

Another TARDIS certainly qualified as an unknown... It shouldn't even be possible.

Gallifrey was gone, sealed in the time-locked War.

The War which had ended with enemies and children burning together.

The Doctor swallowed the guilt and anger and moved his thoughts back on track.

The Time War _should_ be inescapable but nothing was ever quite that simple.

Rassilon and the High Council had found a way out once already.

The last time he had seen _them_, it had been on Earth. Rassilon had been trying to destroy the entire Universe - as all mad, psychopathic egomaniacs ended up doing eventually.

That had been... An odd day.

So... Was the time-lock broken again?

Or was there maybe a Time Lord out there he hadn't known about?

Perhaps someone who had escaped when the portal opened?

It seemed unlikely but stranger things had happened.

If so, what were their intentions...?

The Time Lords had grown crueler and harder during the long War against the Daleks. And even before that, the Doctor wasn't exactly on the best of terms with his own race, generally speaking.

Throughout the majority of his lifetimes, an inability to see eye-to-eye on almost anything had been the only thing he had shared with his fellow Time Lords.

Well... Most of them, anyway.

This whole train of thought filled the couple of seconds after the unknown TARDIS landed.

_Yes, hiding was definitely the smart thing to do._

Smarter, wiser, safer.

But, as usual, the Doctor was far too curious to be wise. His few moments of indecision decided for him as the TARDIS doors opened and an old friend stepped out.

Of all the Time Lords it could have been, the very last he would have expected to see.

And the first he _should_ have expected.

Because who else would it be, really?

_How did he __always_ _survive?_

One of these days, the Doctor would really have to ask.

"You," the Doctor said, pointing at the Master, still caught on the verge of running away. His feet seemed oddly undecided as to which direction to go for a moment. He tripped a little as his extremities disagreed and the Doctor concluded he should stay where he was. "What are you doing here? I thought you were trapped on Gallifrey."

"I got away, obviously." The Master said, glancing around for immediate dangers.

An old habit.

_Always paranoid, always assuming there was someone just around the corner waiting to kill him..._

Finding no hidden assassins, the Master put his hands into his pockets and leaned back against his TARDIS. "Come now, Doctor," he smirked, "you know me better than that."

"So," the Doctor said, putting two and two together, adding one and rounding up to six, "this is you, then? You've made an alliance with the Shansheeth." He phrased it as a statement in order to convey an entirely false confidence.

The Master gave him a disdainful look. "Hardly." He regarded the Doctor with that familiar condescending gaze, the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth carrying a hint of pity.

It stung the Doctor's ego.

A strangely comforting feeling...

_"Do better, Doctor,"_ that look said. _"Keep up."_

"So," the Doctor struggled, saying words until something coherent materialized. "Then... What are you doing here?" The Doctor was unsure yet if he should be worried.

Because the Master was sometimes friend and sometimes foe.

_No..._

Both at once, usually.

Somehow.

His _best enemy_, as the Doctor had explained to one of his other best friends many years ago.

"I heard a rumor you were dead," the Master replied. "I couldn't resist coming to see for myself." He gave the Doctor an up-and-down glance. "You don't _look_ dead," he commented, the smile growing bigger.

The Doctor found himself smiling back at his friend. "You don't look disappointed," he observed aloud.

"This is my disappointed face," the Master ginned, not even attempting to sell the lie. "So."

"So?"

"Been a while," the Master said conversationally.

The Doctor thought back to their last encounter.

_"Get out of the way."_

"Yes..." he agreed slowly. "It has."

"You good?" the Master asked.

The Doctor shrugged vaguely, gesturing around them at the barren, junk-strewn landscape. "Oh, you know... Same old, really."

"New regeneration, I see," the Master acknowledged with a half smile.

"Oh! Yes." The Doctor looked himself up and down, patting his clothes as if checking his pockets. "Yes, new me." He ended by straightening his bow tie proudly. "Again."

_For the last time, in fact..._

And not for much longer.

Did the Master know...?

He might.

But then again, he might not.

The Doctor had guarded that secret closely.

The brief regeneration when the Doctor had, for some reason, chosen to wear the same face...

He had used up all of his allotted lives.

Twelve regenerations had seemed like so many, once upon a time.

He'd never thought he could run out.

But here he was.

The last Doctor.

And now Lake Silencio, April 22, 2011, where the Doctor was fated to die...

It would be permanent, this time.

The certainty of it haunted him in a way he hadn't expected.

He would have thought all the countless times he had _almost_ died would have prepared him a bit better for the real thing.

Like rehearsals.

Apparently not.

He could feel it creeping closer every day, gaining on him step by step, moment by moment. Inexorable, inescapable... No matter how fast he ran or what uncharted places he lost himself in, it was always nearer in the morning than it had been the night before.

The Doctor looked at his old friend.

The Master's eyes were guarded, as if he was hiding something.

But that was hardly unusual.

The Master had never been good at sharing.

"Everything working out alright there?" the Master asked. His tone was casual, but there was something pointed in the question.

"Seems to be, yes..." The Doctor gave his friend a searching look. "Why...?"

"No reason," the Master lied.

The Master had gone through his share of regenerations as well. The Doctor had met every one of them, even if only once or twice.

The Doctor knew his friend/enemy. Better than anyone else alive did, in fact.

Because the Master didn't make a habit of letting anyone live long enough to get to know him.

The Doctor knew that despite how much the Master tried to stay the same every time he regenerated, there was some variation.

His cruelty, his sense of humor, the temper, the control... They came together in slightly different patterns every time.

But some things always remained.

The patience.

The presumption of superiority.

The fierce intelligence, wielded like the sharpest blade.

The _planning_.

The secrets...

And the fact that when the Master showed up, it inevitably meant _trouble_.

The last couple of times they had met, it had been the un-fun kind of trouble...

And the Master had been anything but still and controlled.

He had been insane, needy, screaming for help...

The Doctor felt a twinge of regret, not for the first time.

It was hard to think about those days. But the Doctor had come to accept that he'd handled some things very, very badly.

Including how he had responded to finding out that the Master had survived the Time War.

He remembered being so relieved.

So _angry_.

And so deeply, deeply afraid.

Not of the Master.

Of all the conflicting emotions he felt when he looked at his old friend, he didn't feel fear.

How could he?

After all the centuries, after all they'd been through together? The terror and despair and shared suffering.

How they had protected each other against the enemies they couldn't defeat alone.

No, he knew the Master far too well to ever be afraid of him, no matter what the Master might do to try to inspire that reaction.

The Doctor had been afraid of _himself_. Of the past no one knew, of what he had done, of his shameful truths being exposed to the world.

Of judgement and forgiveness.

That fear made so little sense to him now.

But at the time, it had ruled him, tyrannically.

He wasn't sure if he could have fought it... He only knew that he _hadn't_.

And that as a result, he had done a great many things he was ashamed of.

And failed to do the things he should have.

Because he _owed_ the Master.

More than that, when had he decided to _not_ help one of his friends? Worse, chosen to use his knowledge of them, of their weaknesses, their needs and insecurities, to be cruel...

Taken advantage of their mental illness to drive home how helpless they truly were.

And for _what_?

That answer eluded the Doctor now.

Even so, after all that, the Master had still sacrificed himself for his friend the next time they had met.

Even after the Doctor had thought about killing him.

_Really_ thought about it.

The devastation in his friend's eyes looking down the barrel of that gun, knowing that he would die at the hands of his only friend in the Universe... That look haunted the Doctor's nightmares.

It had been so _resigned_.

And though he'd never make those choices again now, the Doctor knew it had still been _him_ making them then. He had to face that, though he couldn't make up for it, couldn't even understand it in hindsight.

The Master had been dying, had gone back into the Time War.

Into hell. Into a nightmare that ended in fire.

Still, the Doctor had known he'd survived.

He'd finally figured out that, no matter how ridiculously improbable it seemed, the Master was never _really_ gone.

He had no idea how.

Which means it was only a matter of time before they ran into each other again.

Somehow, the infinite Universe had never been wide enough to keep them apart for long.

And he wasn't just alive...

He was... _Better_.

Quiet. Sharp. Focused.

And though the Doctor had had nothing to do with it, it was good to see the Master looking like himself again.

It reminded him of the old days.

"So," the Doctor asked after the second it took him to run through these thoughts, "not crazy anymore?"

The Master smiled brightly. "Nope! No more than usual, anyway," he qualified with a humorous shrug. "Depends who you ask."

"New look," the Doctor acknowledged, gesturing towards the dramatic suit and rubbish beard. "Or old look, I guess?"

"Hmm?" The Master took a moment to transparently pretend he hadn't been waiting for the Doctor to say something. "Oh, yes!" He stroked his goatee, looking very proud of himself. "I decided to go back to the classics. Why mess with perfection?" he added loftily.

The Doctor noticed his friend's prized facial hair needed a bit of a cleanup. Unusual for the Master...

His personal grooming was normally meticulous to the point of obsession.

Annoyingly so.

So... A deliberate choice then?

_Why?_

Something jogged loose in the back of the Doctor's brain, a memory he couldn't quite place. It rattled around in his head unhelpfully.

The Doctor let it be. It would find its way out in its own time.

The Master squinted around at the empty battlefield. "All alone?" There was concern in his expression. It was subtle. Anyone else would have missed it. The Doctor didn't.

"Oh!" the Doctor looked behind him, then back again. "No, temporary hiatus really. Amy and Rory, they took a detour and I sort of..."

"Got bored?" the Master finished for him with a chuckle. "Wandered off?"

"Yes..." the Doctor had to admit. "Possibly, may have, yes..."

"So Shansheeth, eh?" the Master said, returning to the problem at hand. "That's different."

"Yes. Not sure what their game is exactly... You know," the Doctor added, wagging a finger, wondering briefly why the Master was always so aggravatingly easy to talk to, "this really is very unlike them."

"Independent group of some kind?" the Master suggested. "Internal power play?"

_Politics._

Could be...

But.

"Over _what_?" the Doctor wondered. "They're undertakers. In terms of a business model, that's fairly stable." He gave the Master a look, anger simmering to the surface from deep inside. The words spilled out before he could stop them. "You should hire them out exclusively. You'd certainly keep them busy."

The Master's eyes got a bit harder. "Seems like you're _already_ keeping them pretty busy," he returned.

The Doctor's mouth worked itself into an angry frown. "It's different," he insisted.

The Master raised an eyebrow. "So you keep telling me," he said, unconvinced.

They stared at each other wordlessly across the red battlefield for several seconds.

They'd played this game before, so recently. A Year of bluffing, of silence, of proving who was _really_ in charge.

The least fun game they had ever played and neither of them had won in the end...

Now, mutually, they set the posturing aside, both looking away awkwardly in the same moment.

"They sent out a death notice on you, you know," the Master informed his friend, brushing imaginary dust off his jacket sleeve.

"Right, you said that..." the Doctor said, examining the designs his boots were making in the red sand. "Why would they do that?" he asked, thinking aloud. "Wait. Where did they send it _to_?"

The Master smiled and the Doctor knew he had asked the right question. "Earth."

"Earth..." the Doctor nodded. "That's important. Not sure why yet." He pointed at the Master, who was just watching him with a superior smile. "But _you_ already know what they're up to, don't you?"

"Maybe." His expression made it abundantly clear that he _did _know.

"And you're not going to tell me," the Doctor added.

_It was so annoying when he did this..._

The Master shrugged, enjoying his friend's frustration. "You'll figure it out. They took your TARDIS then?"

"Yes," the Doctor confirmed ruefully. "And the sonic."

"Hmm, well. That should be interesting," the Master mused.

"What will be?" the Doctor frowned.

"Whatever you're going to do to find a way out of this." The Master turned to go back into his TARDIS. "I look forward to hearing about it!"

The Doctor threw his arms up at the sky, dismayed, took a couple steps forward. "Wait, you're just going to _leave_ me here?"

The Master looked around at the wasteland of half-destroyed technology. "You seem fine. Anyway, you should feel right at home here."

"Why's that?" the Doctor asked, confused.

"This is what it looks like inside your head," the Master grinned annoyingly.

The Doctor sighed, exasperated. "But..."

"Do you need help?" the Master asked outright. It was clearly a serious offer.

"I, well... Pfft..." the Doctor spluttered, unable to admit he really _could_ use some help.

"I'll take that as a _no,_" the Master laughed.

"But what am I supposed to _do?_" the Doctor cried petulantly at the red sky.

_Oh, that wasn't good..._

He kept having this problem: he'd want to be Impressive and Grown-Up but somehow find himself doing the exact opposite.

Weirdly, though he'd expected the Master to make fun of him... He didn't.

But then... He always had chosen to pass some of those opportunities by, hadn't he?

"How should I know?" the Master shrugged, seemingly unconcerned. "Don't worry, I'll come back to get you in a couple of days if you can't figure it out."

"I can figure it out! I just..." The Doctor sighed, unhappy with where this conversation had ended up going. "You're being _rude_," he said reproachfully.

He had the distinct impression he was pouting and hurriedly attempted to adopt a more mature expression.

It seemed to have no effect on his friend.

"I'm busy, that's all," the Master explained with exaggerated condescension.

"Busy?" the Doctor echoed suspiciously, forgetting his current predicament in favor of the hint of a new puzzle. "Busy with what?"

"Spoilers," the Master chuckled.

The Doctor's thoughts ground to a screeching halt, suddenly alarmed at the thought of River and the Master meeting...

Worried for _himself_.

And for the Universe.

"Good luck, Doctor," the Master waved, turning to go. "See you soon."

"At least give me a clue!" the Doctor shouted after him.

The Master paused, considering. "507," he said after a moment.

"Five oh seven. Five hundred and seven..." The Doctor squinted, scouring his brain for an answer to the riddle.

Not a prime number, obviously...

The individual digits added up to twelve, the regenerations a Time Lord's life cycle was limited to...

Generally speaking.

Aside from that, _507_ had no significance that he could recall.

The number meant absolutely nothing to him.

"What does that mean, five hundred and seven?" he asked, giving up.

"It's a number," the Master explained in a helpful tone, watching the Doctor's struggle amusedly.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and let out an aggravated sigh. "I know it's a number, but what does it _mean?_"

The Master spread his hands in mock-regret. "I really can't say anything else... Sorry!"

"Well, but..." the Doctor gestured unhappily. "That's _worse_ than if you hadn't said anything at all!"

"I _know_," the Master grinned, delighted. "I'm so glad you asked. Bye then!"

The Doctor watched dejectedly as his potential means of escape vanished. A gust of wind swirled away the imprint in the crimson dust leaving no trace of the Master's visit.

Unsure of what to make of this unexpected interaction, the Doctor dismissed it.

He decided to take a walk, idly examining the technological flotsam, kicking at the pieces which still might be salvageable.

With or without the sonic, there was _a lot_ here...

He knew he could construct something workable out of the bits and pieces leftover from the battles which had been fought here.

But the question remained... _What_ should he build?

There were a lot of options, many directions he could choose to take...

Whichever options he chose could end up defining the outcome one way or the other.

The Doctor picked up a promising component and turned it over thoughtfully.

Maybe he was thinking too far ahead...

That didn't usually work out for him.

Besides, it spoiled the surprise.

He picked up another, slightly larger bit. This one had a switch and he flipped it back and forth, watching the light on the side go on and off.

_Step 1: Find the stuff that still worked._

The Doctor started a collection, scrambling through the discarded, half-broken machinery, looking for anything worth saving.

He found more than he expected.

So much so that he began to wonder why all this perfectly good and very interesting stuff had been left here in the first place.

Sure, it _looked_ like rubbish, at first glance.

But a lot of things did.

This machinery was beautiful, useful, just... Needed a bit of love and imagination to see its potential.

What it had been. What it could be.

It _wanted_ to be something new. And there was so much life left in it.

It seemed like a waste, really.

Well, the Doctor could soon fix that.

After some scavenging, the Doctor surveyed his enormous pile and rubbed his hands together nervously.

_Step 2: Put that stuff together into a Thing._

He didn't have any idea what that Thing would be... But that would become clear once the Thing was finished.

Well.

Probably.

Otherwise, he'd have a _Brand New_ Thing.

The Doctor loved when he ended up with Brand New Things.

It would likely need a name and would hopefully also provide him with a way off this planet.

Because he had come to a conclusion while rummaging through the debris of the Crimson Heart: he would _not_ be here in a couple days when the Master came back.

He would find a way out _on his own._

He wasn't sure if he found the Master's promise/threat to come back thoughtful or just extremely annoying.

Was it meant to be supportive and reassuring or condescending?

If the latter, was that to goad him into action?

There really was no telling.

Sometimes it was tempting to assume that even the Master didn't know his own reasons for the obscure and labyrinthine plans he concocted.

It probably wasn't usually true...

But it must be _sometimes_.

Occasionally, he must even confuse himself, mustn't he?

The Doctor found himself laughing as he swapped out a component for one he liked better.

Whatever he was building, it seemed to be taking the form of a short tower. He wondered what it would look like once it was done.

He still didn't know what it was...

But it was clearly _something_.

The Doctor shrugged. He'd find out eventually.

"You and me, together," he assured the machine, which was probably about half finished, give or take a quarter.

It may have only been a few minutes or possibly a couple of hours later that he suddenly shouted, "Five oh seven! _Why_ five oh seven?"

He threw his hands in the air, nearly losing his grip on the improvised tool - _far_ inferior to a sonic screwdriver - which he was currently using to fine-tune the circuitry of a repurposed power converter.

He shook his head at the machine as if it could relate to his frustration.

_He had __almost_ _figured out what it was now. _

"Five oh seven," he muttered. "That's going to bother me..."

He knew that was the point, of course.

But knowing just made it even _more_ annoying.

Cause he still couldn't stop wondering.

"Oh!" he realized suddenly. This time he _did_ drop the tool.

It wasn't a clue or a riddle or a spoiler or a taunt.

Well, ok...

It probably _was_ all those things as well.

But mainly, it was a _promise_.

A promise in disguise that the Master would be back.

That they would see each other again.

Not in a day or so or however long it would take for the Doctor to succeed or fail in his attempt at creating a transportation system to get him off this planet.

_Transport!_

_Of course it was transport._

_So obvious, really..._

The Doctor smiled as he went back to work.

He couldn't help it.

He knew he should be wary, knew the Master couldn't be trusted, whatever he had planned... Knew Lake Silencio still loomed...

But every time he saw an old friend now, he worried that it would be the last time.

It was good to know for once that this, at least, wasn't one of those.

For the first time in a while, as the Doctor made his way out of the Wasteland, he thought about the future... And found that he was quite looking forward to it.

_The End_


End file.
